Message Optimization Technology

A primary function of web services applications is to share data among
applications over the Internet. The data shared can vary in format and include
large binary payloads, such as documents, images, music files, and so on.
When large binary objects are encoded into XML format for inclusion in SOAP
messages, even larger files are produced. When a web service processes and
transmits these large files over the network, the performance of the web service
application and the network are negatively affected. In the worst case scenario
the effects are as follows:

The performance of the web service application degrades to
a point that it is no longer useful.

The network gets bogged down with more traffic than the allotted
bandwidth can handle.

One way to deal with this problem is to encode the binary objects
so as to optimize both the SOAP application processing time and the bandwidth
required to transmit the SOAP message over the network. In short, XML needs
to be optimized for web services. This is the exactly what the Message Optimization
technology does. It ensures that web services messages are transmitted over
the Internet in the most efficient manner.

Sun recommends that you use message optimization if your web service
client or web service endpoint will be required to process binary encoded
XML documents larger than 1KB.